Working to live rather than living to work

Every parent would agree that they appreciate any flexibility a business can offer but flexibility is also a desirable concept for people pursuing a semi-professional hobby or simply choosing to work to live rather than living to work.

The Xpresso Delight's ultra flexible model attracts many of the lifestyle-minded and, in particular, mothers wishing to work without sacrificing watching their children grow up and being part of their big moments. We call them "mumtrepreneurs" and Lisa Demezieres is one of them.

Lisa, with three children under 10, couldn't match the rigidity of nine-to-five, Monday to Friday, with the 24/7 needs of parenting.

In the midst of the global financial crisis, Lisa - along with her husband Patric - decided to add another revenue stream for the family. After a bit of researching, she came across our business model: the Xpresso Delight gourmet coffee franchise, which allowed her to service clients at days and times that suited her and the family.

Lisa is a great example of someone taking advantage of the flexibility offered by the business. Franchise models such as Xpresso Delight, which work by placing fully automated coffee machines into workplaces, are based on maximising the time-to-money ratio. This franchise model is the perfect option for people like Lisa who want to generate a second income for their family with the flexibility to look after their children at the same time.

Franchisees place the machines into offices and service them once a week. The rest of the time, they can sit back and let the machines do the work for them. Alternatively, this spare time can be productively used to look after the children, like in Lisa's case, or to put time into a passion or semi-professional undertakings, whether this is sports, arts or simply having time for friends and family.

Lisa fits her client visits into one day and does the other work from home. If she ever needs to, she can change her days around her kids.

This level of flexibility is only possible within a franchise business that minimises work related stress, complications and inefficiencies. For Xpresso Delight, this is the simple business model of placing a coffee machine into a location and servicing it once a week combined with measures to make the decision to become a franchisee as easy and stress-free as possible.

Buying a franchise is a high cost purchase. Especially for people like Lisa who have never run a business before, becoming a franchisee can be a huge stress factor due to the considerable amount of money that needs to be invested initially to get the business started. Often enough it is this fear that deters people from taking on a franchise business in the first place, or makes first time franchisees spend their lives in and on the business to make sure that it will be successful and the money has not been wasted. This is then the end to the dream of having flexibility in their work life.

Being aware of this, at Xpresso Delight, we aim to take this fear off our franchisees by guaranteeing to refund their franchise fee if they don't make a minimum 40 per cent revenue return on their capital investment within the first six months. This takes a lot of pressure of our franchisees and helps them to focus on what is important to them in their work and their lives, and in turn, achieve the flexibility that they are after.

Although she has never run a business before, Lisa told us that she is confident that she can make a go of things as a franchise business owner. She found the franchise business that not only suits her lifestyle and busy personal agenda but also took on a minimal risk by signing up to it.